Sarkozy’s vow: Britain will process Calais asylum seekers

PARIS — Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday that if elected French president next year, he would force Britain to welcome Calais asylum seekers on its soil until their applications had been processed, as part of a tough new package of proposals on immigration.

The conservative former president, who is seeking his party’s nomination to run for reelection, said he would not try to move the Franco-British border to the U.K. side of the Channel as others in his party have promised to do. But he pledged to travel to London the day after his election with a demand to renegotiate the Touquet accords that regulate border exchanges.

“The border of France starts at the entrance to the tunnel,” Sarkozy told local newspaper La Voix du Nord. “If there were no more controls on the French side, that would create a considerable vacuum, with the result of having even more migrants … Both sides would lose.”

“But,” he added, “since most of these foreigners come to Calais on their way to Britain, I want our British friends to handle the demands of those who want asylum over there, at a closed center, in Britain, and send back those who have been denied.”

A convoy of farmers, French businesses owners and locals blockade the main road into the Port of Calais as they protest against The Jungle migrant camp on September 5, 2016 in Calais, France | Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Drivers are demanding that President François Hollande’s government shut down a migrant camp known as the Jungle. Last Friday, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve visited the area and said he wanted the camp, where thousands of migrants live in makeshift accommodation, to be dismantled “as soon as possible.”

But Cazeneuve gave no timetable for the dismantling. The camp’s southern portion was shut down in March, and Cazeneuve vowed to speed up dismantling the northern portion, while the state aims to create shelters for 5,000 asylum seekers and encourage others to leave France thanks to incentives.

Such measures are palliative and are unlikely to stop migrants from reaching Calais. In the past 15 years, France has been largely powerless to stop the flow of migrants to the city, a fact that few politicians know better than Sarkozy himself.

In 2002, when he was interior minister, Sarkozy ordered the shutdown of Sangatte, a shelter near Calais that had been designed to welcome refugees from Kosovo and was rapidly overwhelmed. The number of migrants in the area dropped until 2005, when it started to climb again as migrants gathered in a vast makeshift camp that became known as the Jungle.

As president, Sarkozy ordered the Jungle (not the same one that is at issue today) destroyed in 2009. Again the number of migrants dropped briefly, only to explode to close to 10,000 over the past two years as millions of refugees fled from wars in the Middle East and Africa.

Asked if he agreed with Cazeneuve’s pledge to shut down the Jungle yet again, Sarkozy said: “Can we really talk about a desire by this minister when the facts show the exact opposite? Socialists have been in power for four and a half years. There were 900 migrants at Calais in 2012, now there are more than 10,000. Where is the will?”

The Socialist government has built temporary shelters welcoming a few hundred migrants. But France has agreed to take in only about 30,000 migrants and only those selected directly from refugee camps in Turkey, which means little chance of winning asylum in France for those who have already reached Calais.

Le Pen’s shadow

Given the difficulty of treating the Calais problem locally, Sarkozy is proposing a broader approach: stopping the migrants before they enter France. He wants to re-establish border controls via a reform of the Schengen free travel zone, which he calls “Schengen 2.”

“France’s duty is to re-establish border controls, which is what we will do if there is no ‘Schengen 2,'” he said.

In addition, Sarkozy is proposing to scrap legislation that allows immigrants who have obtained residency to apply to be “regrouped” with members of their family. Barely relevant to the Calais situation, since few actually seek asylum or residency in France, the family grouping is an old bugbear of the far-right.

Sarkozy has also proposed to change France’s birthright principle for citizenship to make it hereditary — another idea borrowed from the National Front’s toolkit.

Asked to respond to criticism from Alain Juppé, whom polls currently show winning the conservative primary and who argued that banning family grouping would be “inhuman,” Sarkozy said: “What’s inhuman is to make these poor people think they have a future in our country, when there is no housing, no job and no financial means to welcome them.”

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flemming

That France allows someone as flummoxed into the top of politics. To recapitulate things: he was the one who hosted Ghadaffi (…and his tent) and then was the first in the line to oust him from power. The scandal is the his toppling of Ghadaffi only brought about the efflux of refugees into Calais. Should Sakrozy pay for his deeds.

Posted on 9/5/16 | 3:52 PM CET

Tom Cullem

The man is a fool. He can’t force Britain to do a damned thing. The camp is going to be dismantled, the “refugees” will be dispersed into other camps in France, where France can process them and either keep them or deport them. And lastly, Sarkozy will be trounced by Juppe, who beats him in the second round in every single poll.

Sarkozy’s threat is a bit like Trump bawling about a wall on the US’s southern border that Mexico will pay for. He thinks if he says it often enough, he can make it possible. It isn’t.

Even the French aren’t that stupid.

Posted on 9/5/16 | 3:57 PM CET

den

I like him. He’s funny.

Posted on 9/5/16 | 10:47 PM CET

CSK

I’d love to be a fly on the wall when this pompous little windbag tries to tell Theresa May what to do!

Posted on 9/5/16 | 11:12 PM CET

Gareth

I am confused. The people Mr Sarkozy is talking about are in France. I may disagree with their ‘Burkini bans’ and other silliness, but France is not such a terrible place to live at all. I holidayed in Normandy myself a few weeks ago and it was very pleasant.
Mr Sarkozy makes it sound as though it is reasonable for the migrants to seek asylum in the UK from France. If he really does think that France is so oppressive that seeking asylum from France is reasonable, perhaps he should concentrate his campaign on making France less oppressive?
(No I am more positive about France than Mr Sarkozy is, I don’t think the asylum claims can be valid).

Posted on 9/6/16 | 10:35 AM CET

IdioticEU

France let them into France, so France can keep them, or send them back to where they came from!!
If the French don’t like it, elect better Politicians, such as Marie Le Pen??

Posted on 9/6/16 | 11:41 AM CET

Tom Cullem

Every time he opens his mouth he sounds more like Trump. Did he get the memo that the government is going to close Calais by the end of the year, and disburse the migrants into camps elsewhere in France? Or the ones that pigs will fly before the UK allows France to shove France’s responsibility for processing asylum seekers that land on its soil onto another country’s soil just because said asylum seekers insist?

Another political hot air balloon making promises he knows he can’t keep, and simply reinforcing Britons’ sense that they made the right decision in the BREXIT referendum.

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